Increasing interest in renewables over the past two decades has led to active research and development of storage technologies. Energy storage has received significant attention as a way to increase the efficiency of the electrical grid by smoothing the flow of power from renewables such as wind and solar. In particular, storage has been proposed as a strategy for reducing curtailment, time-shifting, spinning reserve, peak shaving and electricity price arbitrage.
However, the intermittent and uncertain nature of wind and solar energy, which arrive at rates that vary stochastically, presents a fundamental challenge to the integration of storage into the electricity grid as penetration levels rise over the next several years. It is important that storage devices be managed to effectively to minimize congestion and to maximize revenues generated from energy shifting in the face of time-dependent and highly stochastic prices. For these reasons, practical and adaptive methods for optimal control of such power systems are critical for the deployment.